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The long awaited PVP feature in Diablo 3 has finally been launched, well at least part of it has… They are calling the new pvp feature “brawling”. How this works is you will have to speak to Nek the Brawler who is located in the hub of each act and then will transport you and your party to a zone in which you can brawl it out.

There will be an option of 4 zones while brawling: the church, river, the lake and the graveyard. You will be able to fight your friends either one on one or have a full 4 person free for all. You may only brawl with 3 other players at a time and will not lose any gear durability. All the softy classes will receive a 30% damage reduction and monks and barbarians will receive an additional 5% damage reduction from their already 30% given.

Players who wish to brawl in hardcore mode will not lose their players when they lose the battle or die. “Death is not permanent” is what the patch notes listed. Once the battle is over you will transported back to town where you will continue on your journey.

Although there are no rewards for brawling, players can still battle each other to see who is better when it comes down to 1 on 1 match. I believe that pvp will have many changes very quickly as they begin to sort out the over powered techniques and combos for classes and will make changes until they feel the battles are fair.

The Monk is a holy fighter in Diablo 3 that uses a mixture of magic and martial arts to defeat its enemies. Just like the Barbarian, they can equip any type of weapon making it easier for them to gear up. With the soon to come patch in which PVP will be released in Diablo 3 on the rise, many people are wondering how to play their classes in this new environment. Well, let me make it easy for you!

Using Your Heals

As a Monk, you’re one of the only classes in the game with direct healing spells. While these come at the cost of damage ability slots, surviving is a lot more important in PVP than it is in PVE. Breath of Heaven is a heal with a short cool down that primarily heals allies. While you can slightly change what it does through the skill rune, Circle of Life is probably the best rune, which simply increases the amount of healing it does. Serenity is an ability which can function as a heal, but is mostly used for the invulnerability it provides to the Monk. With the Ascension skill rune, Serenity lasts a whole four seconds, buying you critical time when taking heavy damage. Finally, Inner Sanctuary is an ability that places a stationary bubble on the ground. Consecration increases its duration so that you and your allies can be shielded from harm for that much longer.

Damaging Abilities for the Monk

While the Monk is probably the game’s best reactive healer, this does not mean that they are not capable of doing damage. The Sweeping Wind skill is one of the most important to the Monk. It creates a large circle around the Monk which damages enemies. Blade Storm is the preferred skill rune with lesser gear, but Cyclone becomes a more attractive option when you’ve acquired more crit. Exploding Palm is another damage ability frequently used by the Monk. This skill applies a DoT to the target making them take damage over time. If the target dies while the DoT still remains, then they will explode and damage all nearby enemies. Finally, Cyclone Strike lets you pull enemies toward you from afar giving your group a chance to get kills. Implosion increases the pull distance making it an even more effective skill.

Monk Passive Skills

Oddly enough, Monks are the only class that currently has a passive skill which absolutely must be used by every Monk. One with Everything makes it so your highest elemental resistance is shared across all resistances. This means that you can simply stack fire resistance or lightning resistance while all other Diablo 3 classes are forced to stack the expensive resist all stat. Seize the Initiative increases your armor by an amount equal to your Dexterity, which is your main stat. This passive skill along with a shield make the Monk incredibly hard to take down. And last but not least, we come to Transcendence. This skill makes all Spirit you spend heal you. Stack more life per Spirit spent on your gear and you will be able to heal yourself up quickly just by hurting enemies!

The Witch Doctor is the master of the dark arts in Diablo 3. This class uses fire, poison, and darkness to bring their enemies from afar. The Witch Doctor is the only class in Diablo 3 that has an emphasis on pets. They have many different spells which can summon a number of minions to aid the Witch Doctor in combat. Though they are frail, underestimate the Witch Doctor and their accompanying minions at your own peril!

Making Monsters

The Witch Doctor has lots of different spells that let them summon various pets to battle. The first of these spells are the mighty Zombie Dogs. You can summon three or four Zombie dogs depending on whether or not you choose the passive skill Zombie Handler. These beasts are extremely helpful and even more so with the Leeching Beasts rune that makes the zombies’ attacks heal you and the zombies as well. The Gargantuan is the next pet you will have access to and it is a great one. There are plenty of good skill runes for this massive behemoth, but Bruiser seems to be the best as it can stun enemies for three seconds, a real blessing in PVP. Apart from these pets, the Witch Doctor can summon several others, but only for short periods of time. The Fetish Army is a cool down that can be used to seriously increase your damage by temporarily summoning an army of fetishes.

Primary Skills

As a Witch Doctor, your resource is mana. Unlike mana in WoW and most other adventure games, the Witch Doctor’s mana is a quickly depleting resource that regenerates quickly as well. This means that you will have plenty of time as a Witch Doctor when you want to use spells that don’t cost you any mana, or at least not much of it. Plague Toads is my absolute favorite Witch Doctor primary skill because you can make it free with the Toad Affinity skill rune. This means your mana will regenerate more quickly and you will have to use your primary skill less. Firebomb is another unique primary skill that, along with the Roll the Bones skill rune, can bounce from enemy to enemy dealing respectable damage. Managing your mana is one of the keys to being an effective Witch Doctor in Diablo 3.

Dealing Maximum Damage as a Witch Doctor

In order to deal the most damage possible to enemies, there are a few Witch Doctor spells that you should check out. First, Sacrifice is a big damage ability that reacts with your Zombie Dogs spell. This spell will blow up your summoned zombies and deal massive damage to anyone standing too close. The Next of Kin skill rune also means that each destroyed zombie has a chance to spawn a new one! Wall of Zombies is another ability that deals a large amount of damage if placed correctly. Zombies will stack up and fall over, knocking enemies back with the Pile On skill rune. This rune also decreases the cool down of this spell from twenty to ten seconds!

The Barbarian is arguably the most popular class in Blizzard’s new MMO, Diablo 3. The reason for this is that the Barbarian is the only returning class from Diablo 2 that is in this game. This class is a determined fighter who solves problems with his weapons rather than his wits. With the ability to wield a two handed weapon, two one handed weapons, or a one handed weapon and a shield make the Barbarian a very versatile class.

Playing a Barbarian in Diablo 3

While the Barbarian certainly excels at melee combat, this class is not without its shortcomings. For one, the Barbarian has trouble getting up close to enemies and are quite useless if they cannot do so. The Barbarian must first generate fury before he can start doing damage, and this makes them easy prey for experienced ranged players. That being said, the Barbarian does have a couple skills like Furious Charge and Weapon Throw that can help close the gap. In order to succeed as a Barbarian in the upcoming Diablo 3 PVP patch, you’ll need to be quick on your feet and able to avoid damage at a second’s notice if you want to survive. No other class can stand up to the sheer melee force of the great Barbarian.

Necessary Abilities

While we usually wouldn’t call any D3 skills necessary, these next few skills will greatly improve your ability to deal damage and as such, are recommended. Wrath of the Berserker is a cool down that increases your attributes for a short amount of time. The best thing about this skill is the skill rune Thrive on Chaos that makes it so each 25 fury you gain in the berserker state reduces the cool down of Wrath of the Berserker by one second! Ignore Pain is a damage cool down that makes you a much better tank, but only while it is active. The Mob Rule skill rune extends this effect to your entire party making all of you incredibly tough to take down for the duration. Finally, the Barbarian can use his Whirlwind attack in order to hit enemies that group up together. Along with the Dust Devils skill rune, Whirlwind generates tornadoes that also deal damage to enemies.

PVP in Diablo 3

Many veteran Diablo players remember the days when PVP was started way back in Diablo 2. In this game, PVP was simply an option that you turned on. Once you did so, you were free to kill just about anybody which led to outrage by the majority of the community. While some did enjoy this ganking style of PVP, most people thought it was inconvenient and should be removed. In Diablo 3, PVP will be organized and run much like arena matches in World of Warcraft. Each match will be ten minutes long with teams of four on four. The team who accumulates the least deaths within the allotted time is the victor! PVP is sure to be a fun and exciting new way to get players addicted to Blizzard’s Diablo 3 all over again!

The Demon Hunter is a ranged class in Diablo 3 that focuses on dealing damage with its weapons rather than powerful magic alone. This class wields weapons like bows and cross bows that give them the tactical advantage in battle. Further contributing to this advantage are traps, bombs, and a whole host of other abilities at the Demon Hunter’s disposal. Check out this class if you enjoy the Hunter / Ranger style of play.

Two Unique Resources

While all other classes in Diablo 3 have three resources, the Demon Hunter has 3. It has a health bar like all the other classes, but the Demon Hunter has two unique resources in Hatred and Discipline. Hatred is the fuel for their offensive power and can be spent and regenerated quickly much like a Rogue’s energy in WoW. Discipline is a slowly regenerating resource that is used mostly for casting the Demon Hunter’s defensive spells. In order to play to your maximum potential as a Demon Hunter, you must carefully budget your Discipline bar for times of great need so that you are not left without any ways to escape from combat. This is especially true in a PVP environment as you will be taking damage a lot of the time. These two resources make the Demon Hunter one of the most fun classes to play in Diablo 3.

Keeping the Enemy at Bay

Entangling Shot is a primary skill almost immediately available to the young Demon Hunter. This skill will let you slow your enemies from afar while you run away and continue attacking. Heavy Burden is a good skill for this rune which increases the duration of the slow. Chain Gang is also good effectively doubling the amount of targets that Entangling Shot can affect. Caltrops and Smokescreen are both abilities available in the defensive category. Caltrops creates a trap that slows enemy movement speed when they walk through it. These strategic devices will help you get the edge in battle. Smokescreen is fairly self explanatory and lets you vanish behind a thick cloud of smoke for a bit while you attempt to make an escape. The Demon Hunter has plenty of ways to slow the enmy down, but how does it kill them?

Powerful Demon Hunter Abilities

Elemental Arrow is a powerful ability that pierce through enemies and do a different type of damage depending on which skill rune is used. Frost Arrow is particularly useful for PVP because it does massive amounts of damage, and still slows enemies. this Elemental Arrow skill rune also splits the arrow in three when it makes a successful hit on an enemy. Companion is another skill that not only helps out the Demon Hunter’s damage, but its utility as well. You will first start out with the less than stellar raven companion, but you will unlock new skill runes soon enough. The final skill rune, Wolf companion, does lots of damage to enemies and is the main reason to choose this ability. The Demon Hunter is one of the most fun and unique classes to play in all of Diablo 3.

The Wizard is one of the three ranged attackers in Diablo 3. Even though it might fall into the larger of the two groups, there are still plenty of things that distinguish the Wizard from the Witch Doctor and the Demon Hunter. With plenty of arcane magic spells and complimentary passive abilities to support them, the Wizard is a feared class in Diablo 3.

Wizard Signature Skills

As a Wizard, you have access to several spells that don’t deplete your Arcane Power. This is the resource you use to cast most of your spells, so having a couple free ones is always a good idea. Each signature skill has its own strengths and weaknesses that make them good fro different situations in PVP. Each of these spells has an option that makes it restore Arcane Power instead so that you can use your powerful spells more often. Without this much needed resource regeneration, the Wizard is often left casting signature spells too much to really do enough damage. This is why the skill rune that restores Arcane Power is almost always the best for your signature skill. The only exception to this is maybe Spectral Blade which can slow the enemy by 80% when they are hit with the Impactful Blades rune.

Powerful Wizard Spells

Blizzard was not shy in mentioning that the Wizard was to be their class that could hit the hardest in a single strike. As such, many of the Wizard’s spells are able to inflict massive damage to opponents. Disintegrate is a spell that shoots a beam of energy in front of you, destroying all in its path. The Convergence skill rune for this spell increases the width of the beam, ultimately letting you hit more enemies. The Hydra spell is another Wizard favorite that places a living turret like hydra on the ground. Depending on the equipped skill rune, the Hydra spell can do many unique things. Venom Hydra was the favorite for PVE, but I’d imagine that would change with the constant movement going on in PVP environments. Lightning Hydra or Arcane Hydra might be the best choices for these situations because they can shoot their attacks at enemies from a distance.

Best Passives for the Wizard

While Glass Cannon was a favorite in PVE, it likely won’t be as such in Diablo 3 PVP because of the increased damage you take. Unstable Anomaly is an awesome ability that makes you knock enemies back and heal 15% of your health whenever you go below 30% health. The effect cannot occur more than once a minute though. Paralysis is another spell that seems like it will be extremely useful in PVP. With this passive ability, any lightning damage you do has an 8% chance to stun the enemy. A stun can be critical in a long match so this talent is quite helpful. Finally, you can slow enemies every time you do arcane damage with the Temporal Flux ability. Every second is crucial in PVP and that is why the Wizard can use all the help keeping its enemies at bay that it can get!

PVP was a much loved feature of the beloved Diablo II. But now its sequel, Diablo III, seeks to change the way that PVP was played in the old game. This has much of the community up in arms, but just as many are happy about the changes. Blizzard is seeking to balance these responses and create an engaging PVP environment for everyone in Diablo III.

PVP in Diablo II

In the previous game, PVP was something the player enabled. They could simply go into PVP mode and kill whoever they wanted. While many players loved this idea, less aggressive players hated the idea of being ganked every time they left the city. This led to a drop in followers of the Diablo 3 PVP community as some thought it was just too hardcore to enjoy. While some players may think this is not much of a problem because of the under prevalence of world PVP on PVP World of Warcraft servers. They do have a point, but Azeroth is so massive and the world of Diablo II was comparatively much smaller. If anything leads to a lack in player interest, however small, it is not the best idea for the game to keep going in that direction. This is why Blizzard has changed the idea of PVP in Diablo III.

A Whole New Way to Play

The idea for Diablo 3 PvP is a lot like arena if the Diablo II’s PVP was compared to WoW world PVP. Players will be able to enter matches against other players to have battles instead of fighting whoever they want. This will lead to much less ganking and more competitive play between players. It is still unknown if there will be some kind of ranking system that groups players together by their record. If this is the case, then PVP in Diablo 3 might be just what all the fans have been asking for. If not, then Blizzard will have some fine tuning to do until the players are satisfied. It is no secret that Blizzard loves WoW more than Diablo III. The money they make off of World of Warcraft is so much comparatively larger than they do in Diablo 3′s PVP. Many players say this leads to Blizzard caring less about Diablo 3 pvp and more about their big success.

When Will It Be Released?

This seems to be the question that everyone is asking. Why can’t they just release this feature already? It will make the game so much better! While it will do a lot for the game, it’s a stretch to hope that it will make the whole game better.Grinding monsters endlessly out in the field loses its appeal after a while, as do other aspects of the game. Hopefully, D3 PVP will be released in Diablo 3 upon release of the next big patch. While this is quite a large time frame, many people feel the game is long overdue for this feature and are pushing for its release. We may see PVP in Diablo 3 sooner than we think!